Successful Ticket buying - Mac or PC?

[johnny-yen]

I am pleased to say that I was successful again at getting tickets. 

To increase my chances this year, I tried using two computers; a iMac and PC. They were both on the same wi-fi network but their outcome was so different. 

My wife's laptop PC never even saw the holding page during the 50 minutes of ticket buying madness.  My iMac, on the other hand, could be refreshed at will. Every time I refreshed it only took around one second to get the holding page. I kept clicking and after about 20 minutes I was successful. Still nothing from the PC. I even went back to the iMac and got some more tickets for a family we know, who were also struggling. I even kept randomly comparing them until they were sold out and this pattern continued.

It wasn't just random better chances either. Every refresh of the laptop got nothing, every refresh of the iMac quickly got either the holding page or order page. 

Can anyone else confirm if they were more successful with Mac or PC? And any techy people know why there should be such a marked difference?

As I said before, they were both on the same wi-fi network. The only other difference I can see is that the iMac was using Safari and the PC was using Internet Explorer. The iMac is nothing special, a few years old and it was the lowest spec model available (couldn't afford anything else's). The laptop is actually newer, less than a year old. 

[Cornelius_Fudge]

My mate got tickets with a bit of rope and a brick, swinging it round his head in the middle of Hackney Common.

 

Horses for courses

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

Had a mac book pro and a Mac book air and got nothing, maybe the occasional holding page on the Mac book pro but mostly white screen. I consistently had the holding page on my mums old Dell laptop, they were all on different connections.

Steve Job's ghost isn't the answer to your ticket success, for every one with success in a Mac there is another who got through on their old Commodore 64.

[a6l6e6x]

Mac got through for me. 3 PCs got me nowhere. Out of the 3 times I have personally got through to buying tickets 2 have been on the mac. The one where I got through on PC was 2013 when there was the backdoor link.

Saying that I think it's entirely down to chance and doesn't mean anything

[FuzzyDunlop]

Dont have a mac. A banged up PC using Windows Vista managed for a 3rd year (I'd already got a ticket by that point and was helping a mate)

Mate got nowhere on his mac.

 

[Jobseeker]

For whatever reason Safari seems to work a lot better for me as well.

[Kariselle]

I got to the holding page on my mac but then couldn't seem to refresh - but that could have been my wifi or browser. Needless to say, I wasn't successful. 

[LSF]

I got through on a shitty £170 chromebook and I believe one of our group got through on a poor 3G connection a couple of years ago. Really is just your luck but when you're paying a fortune for a Mac book you expect it to work in properly at times likes these 

[Lucy92]

Failed on iMac, laptop and phone. 

[carrie2]

Both my MacBook and my Mam's smartprice laptop got through seconds apart from each other, didn't get a whiff of the holding page from any iPhones  

[johnny-yen]

32 minutes ago, Jobseeker said:

For whatever reason Safari seems to work a lot better for me as well.

I did wonder if Safari was the key difference. Don't think there can be much between the specs of my two machines. Certainly no difference in wifi connection. But the ability to get through was immense. 

I wonder if you can get install Safari on a PC?

[sadimmock]

Failed to even get the holding page on either a Mac (Safari) or a PC (I.E.) over the same wifi network. However both iPhone and Android phone  (over 4G) did at least see the holding page (but no countdown) a few times over the hour 

[Jobseeker]

38 minutes ago, johnny-yen said:

I did wonder if Safari was the key difference. Don't think there can be much between the specs of my two machines. Certainly no difference in wifi connection. But the ability to get through was immense. 

I wonder if you can get install Safari on a PC?

No doubt there is some detailed logical reason why people are getting in and some aren't, but because I know next to nothing about computers let's call it luck.

[shayne66]

Managed to get through 3 times on a old laptop running Windows 7 on wifi, feel lucky as forgot I had changed wifi password so at 8:59am the laptop wasn't even connected to the Internet. 

Pc on windows 10  hard wired got nothing but white screen. 

 

[henry bear]

I used my Mac on Thursday - had 2 tabs open, one I continually refreshed, the other I left to refresh automatically. Both tabs got me through to the booking page after about 15 minutes.

[geoffboycott]

Got through twice on Mac/Safari, but personally I think it's just luck whether you hit refresh at that right time, irrespective of set up.

[musky]

There's no technical reason a Mac would be more successful than a PC, nor one browser than another all things being equal. 

They could give preference to a particular browser/platform if they wanted, but you'd have to ask why they'd want to do that given that they've gone out of their way to make the sales as fair as possible. 

FWIW, I was using a Mac (FF, Chrome, Safari) and iPhone (Safari). Nothing from either on Thursday, Sunday I got tickets with Firefox. The other two browsers didn't get past a holding page and the iPhone just white screened. As ever, it's just luck. 

[FestiZebra]

3 Macbooks trying under one household, the one tethered to 4G had all the browsers loading the holding page and got through

[cats and dog are fab]

Last year - successful on general sale tickets with a Macbook Pro (Sky wifi, Safari) in South London

This year - successful on Thursday coach tickets with a Macbook Pro (Talk Talk wifi, Chrome) in Manchester BUT failed massively on Sunday with the same laptop, same wifi provider in East London...

Anyone else think that location has an impact? I got through almost instantly in Manchester but couldn't even get to a holding page in East London.

*never got anywhere with my phone!

 

[matt1991]

10 minutes ago, cats and dog are fab said:

Anyone else think that location has an impact? I got through almost instantly in Manchester but couldn't even get to a holding page in East London.

*never got anywhere with my phone!

 

Don't think location has anything to do with it, I had the opposite. I was trying in East London, got in in 11 minutes, and my mate in Manchester didn't see anything. Also didn't get anywhere on phone though

[johnny-yen]

2 hours ago, musky said:

There's no technical reason a Mac would be more successful than a PC, nor one browser than another all things being equal. 

 

There must have been some reason for the difference though. The PC didn't get the holding page once in 50 minutes. The Mac got it every time. That cannot be just 'luck'. 

[Andy0808 v5]

My mac (for the first time since 2011) didn't see the holding page once. 

My phone on safari kept white screening, i've previously got tickets 2 of my 5 successful times off of that. 

 

I think we all hold a higher power accountable for our success or failure, rather than just luck. 

[noplacelikehome]

Just luck! I had mac using Firefox and safari and pc using ie and chrome plus a phone (although not on 3g) and didn't even get a sniff of the holding page on any of them. Other half (from a different house- I was at my parents) had 2 pcs using a pc and chrome and ff and a phone with 4g and only got the holding page once or twice. Thankfully a lovely fellow efester secured tickets for our group

Edited October 11, 2016 by noplacelikehome

[ohvienna]

My mac didn't get onto the holding page once. I know we are trying to find out if there is a secret formula to getting tickets so we never miss out (phone vs desktop, 4g vs broadband, mac vs pc) but there's definitely been enough of these threads now to say it's pretty much random and down to luck? 

Unless you are a tech wizard who can find out the IP needed for the hosts file hack of course

[gizmoman]

11 minutes ago, johnny-yen said:

There must have been some reason for the difference though. The PC didn't get the holding page once in 50 minutes. The Mac got it every time. That cannot be just 'luck'. 

The PC had the "white screen of death" by the sound of it, I was using 2 identical netbooks, one tethered to a 4g phone connection got the same white screen no response, managed to get through on the other one, slow wifi connection. There has been speculation on here that the white screen issue is due to a bad cookie, maybe it doesn't load correctly and gets corrupted, and so can't connect again, anyway it's certainly frustrating especially if it's your only  device.